


36 Questions

by aliciameade



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: 36 questions, Bonding, Confessions, Dialogue Heavy, F/F, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Smut, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-10 09:21:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15946421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliciameade/pseuds/aliciameade
Summary: A psychological study was conducted to determine whether two people could be made to fall in love.These 36 questions were the result.





	1. Set I

* * *

 

Beca’s focus is broken when a message notification slides across the corner of her computer screen. Normally, she’d get pissy about being interrupted when she’s feeling in the zone - and she really is right now; she’s pretty sure she has a kickass hook figured out - but seeing who the text is from dials back her irritation.

 

**_“Hey you. Busy later?”_ **

 

She smiles at Chloe’s text and toggles to her Message app. _“Not really. Sup?”_

 

**_“Bored. Come hang out with me? Xx”_ **

 

She smiles again; every time Chloe invites her over, Beca feels like Chloe’s a shy little girl trying to make a friend for the first time despite them knowing one another for going on 10 years.

 

_“What’s in it for me?”_

 

**_“I thought I was enough for you.”_ **

 

That’s the other thing that makes Beca smile, the way Chloe can shift from shy to vixen at the drop of a hat. It’s always done things to Beca, twisted her up inside and confused her about how she felt (feels) about her best friend. It was particularly bad, stifling, even, when they were in college, all those hormones running wild coupled with free-flowing alcohol and all-night study sessions that ended more than once with the pair sharing a bed.

 

All Beca was doing was trying to help Chloe pass her Russian Lit class.

 

At least, that’s what she always told herself, and the rest of the girls who threw teasing, often inappropriate remarks their way when they would both emerge from the same room in the morning.

 

And the flirting - God, the flirting. Chloe was a relentless flirt - still is. Beca’s never quite mastered how to handle it; sometimes she can return it tête-à-tête and sometimes it leaves her an embarrassed, flustered fool.

 

It felt like a lifetime ago, and in a way, it was. They’ve long-since graduated. She has a decent job where she actually gets to work on music most of the time. She’s still low on the totem pole at the studio, but she’s not so low that she has to get coffee and burritos for people anymore. She actually has an assistant of her own. Well, an intern, really, and he assists everyone on the team, but she likes to think of him as her assistant. He brings her coffee if she asks for it. She has an apartment that isn’t a total shithole nor in a bad neighborhood, a car that starts reliably and doesn’t have a cracked windshield, and she can pay her bills.

 

And Chloe’s there.

 

She’d moved to Los Angeles two years ago citing a bad break-up and a need to start over. She’d spent the first two months in the city crashing at Beca’s place. She insisted she would sleep on the couch, or buy an air mattress, but she spent every night in Beca’s bed.

 

It was comfortable.

 

It was comforting.

 

It was platonic, but every night, Beca fell asleep with her mind wrestling with itself.

 

_“You’re more than enough for me. But what do you wanna do?”_

 

**_“I found this quiz online. I want us to take it.”_ **

 

_“??”_

 

**_“Just come over. I already ordered pizza.”_ **

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Beca says after she takes a sip of her favorite beer that Chloe happened to have on hand, “what’s this quiz?” She watches Chloe light up in excitement at her question. “It’s not some _Cosmo_ shit, is it?”

 

They’re camped out on Chloe’s couch in her studio apartment. The TV is on, tuned to some channel that has a “Friends” marathon going, but it’s muted in favor of the music playing through Chloe’s little sound system via Beca’s phone.

 

Chloe shakes her head and grabs a notebook from the floor next to the couch. “It’s from _The New York Times._ ”

 

“You read _The New York Times_?” Beca says with a laugh as she turns and settles against the arm of the couch to face Chloe, their feet sharing the cushion between them.

 

Chloe sticks her tongue out at her. “Someone shared the article on Facebook.”

 

Beca nudges Chloe’s foot with her own. “Okay, okay. And you wrote it all down?”

 

“I didn’t want to have my phone out the whole time.”

 

“How long is this quiz?”

 

“36 questions.” Chloe shifts in her seat and takes a long drink of her beer. “Question number one: If you could invite anyone in the world to dinner, who would it be?”

 

“Alive or dead?”

 

“Doesn’t matter.”

 

Beca thinks for a second. “Janis Joplin.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because she didn’t care that women weren’t supposed to be rock stars and I want to ask her how to deal with sexism in the industry better.”

 

Chloe smiles at her. “I’d pick Harriet Tubman.”

 

The unexpected answer makes Beca snort. “Why?”

 

“Because she went through unimaginable hardship and kept fighting for what she believed in.”

 

Beca regrets her gut reaction and feels foolish. “Sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.” Chloe smiles at her and passes the notebook; only one question is written on the page it’s open to the one she just answered. “Your turn to ask.”

 

“But we both answer?”

 

“Mhm. Go.”

 

Beca flips to the next page and reads the question. “Would you like to be famous? In what way?”

 

“No. I don’t want to be famous.” Chloe’s answer is quick.

 

“No?”

 

Chloe shakes her head and holds out her hand expectantly, so Beca puts the notebook in it while she answers, “I don’t want to be famous either. But if I’m good at what I do, I might be. And I’m okay with that.”

 

“You’re going to be super famous.” Chloe smiles at her and it makes her blush a little. “Okay. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?”

 

“All the time.”

 

“Do you really?” Chloe asks with a laugh. “Why?”

 

“Because I hate talking on the phone. It makes me feel dumb.”

 

“We talk on the phone all the time.”

 

“That’s…” Beca hesitates. “It’s different. What about you?”

 

Chloe’s voice is quiet when she answers, “Sometimes.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Next question.” Chloe turns the page and says hurriedly, “What would constitute a perfect day for you? Sorry, that was supposed to be your question to ask.”

 

“It’s fine.” Beca keeps wondering why Chloe would ever have to rehearse a conversation when she answers, “I don’t know. I guess, like...I’d sleep in. And then I’d move to the couch with my coffee and lay there for an hour and do absolutely nothing, or until I got hungry. I’d have grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch, and I’d write the biggest song of the year in 15 minutes in the shower. I’d have my dad’s homemade apple pie for dinner -”

 

“Pie for dinner?”

 

“Don’t question my perfect day. I’d have pie for dinner and take a bubble bath and read my favorite book with a glass of wine until I can’t keep my eyes open and then I’d go to bed and curl up with -” she catches herself. “Curl up and fall asleep without a struggle.”

 

Chloe looks like she’s about to ask a question and Beca’s relieved when she instead says, “I think my perfect day would be getting up early enough to watch the sunrise while I go for a run. I talk to my granny aaaand, yeah I get sushi for dinner. I like the bubble bath and sleep part of your day; I’m stealing it.”

 

“You can’t steal part of my day!”

 

“Stealing it. And sex. Sex happens somewhere in there. Like, multiple orgasm sex. That’s my perfect day.”

 

Beca’s feet seem to go numb at Chloe’s final addition and she’s glad she’s sitting down right now. Her instinct is to make a wisecrack about Chloe wanting sex as part of her perfect day, but she spent a millisecond too long playing out that perfect day in her mind and now it’s foggy.

 

Or steamy.

 

She clears her throat and shoves the notebook back at Chloe. “Go.”

 

Chloe laughs when she turns the page.

 

“Oh no - how embarrassing is it?”

 

“It’s not.” Chloe smiles at her. “When did you last sing to yourself and to someone else?”

 

Beca rolls her eyes and cherishes the relief. “In the car on the way here. And like half an hour ago. And I already know your answers.”

 

“Do you?”

 

“Oh yeah. You were singing to yourself when I got here, and we were singing to each other half an hour ago.” Beca likes the way her chest warms when she really thinks about what it’s like to sing to Chloe and have her sing back. They’ve done that innumerable, infinite times but she hasn’t really thought about it and how it makes her feel in years. “Hand it over.” She waits for the notebook and flips the page once it’s in her hand. “Okay, question six: If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

 

“Body.”

 

Beca laughs. “That was quick.”

 

Chloe gestures at herself. “Why wouldn’t I want to keep this body until I die?”

 

“I guess I don’t blame you,” Beca says with a pointed look; they’re discussing Chloe’s body, so why not look at it? “I feel like it’d be weird to look like you do but not have the mind to match.”

 

“No, think about it. Instead of being hot and making dumb mistakes because I haven’t learned my lesson yet, I’d have a lifetime of experience _and_ look great. I could become President.”

 

Beca wants to question her logic, but as ridiculous as it is… “Okay, I guess that checks out.”

 

“Then I assume you’d want to keep your mind young?”

 

She nods. “I watched my grandfather’s memory go. He had Alzheimer’s and it was so sad and confusing for him. I don’t want to go through that.”

 

Chloe’s attitude softens and she offers a look of understanding instead of more jokes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

 

“I was 13 when he died; it’s okay.” Beca clears her throat and tosses the notebook to Chloe.

 

Chloe seems to wince a little before asking, “Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?” She puts down the notebook. “I’m sorry, that’s - we can stop.”

 

“No, it’s okay.” Beca shifts and tucks her feet under herself. “I always figured I’d go in my sleep. Nothing traumatic. Maybe a brain aneurysm? Something quick and painless.”

 

“You’ve thought about it a lot?”

 

Beca shrugs and finishes her beer to set the bottle on the table. “Not a lot. What about you?”

 

“Cancer.”

 

“Why would you think -”

 

“It runs in my family,” Chloe says quickly. “Here; ask the next question.”

 

“I’m sorry, I -”

 

“Ask, Beca.” Chloe looks like she’s trying not to cry and Beca wonders about who Chloe lost; in all the years they’ve known each other, not once has Chloe had to fly home for a funeral. That she knew of… “Please?”

 

“All right. Name three things we have in common.”

 

Chloe seems relieved by the simplicity of the question. “Singing, duh,” she says with a smile. “We’re both super protective of the people we care about. And we’re both slow to let people in.”

 

Beca has to think about Chloe’s answer for a second; she’s never considered Chloe to be guarded or not trusting of others. Chloe had breezed into her life with a carefree attitude that Beca envied. Chloe was warm and affectionate with almost everyone she met.

 

But the more she thinks about it, the more Beca remembers what their earliest interactions were: top-level things like Beca assimilating into the Bellas, planning fundraisers, and planning parties. Chloe pulled her into her personal space, sure, but it wasn’t until winter break Beca’s second year at Barden that Chloe told her, alone and in the dark, that she was scared she didn’t know how to be more than a Bella. It had been the first time Chloe told her something serious and personal that wasn’t a matter of TMI. It was a real fear, and it took Chloe a year and a half to open that part of herself to Beca.

 

She’d never considered that before - that Chloe wasn’t an open book to just anyone.

 

“Well? What about you?” Chloe says and interrupts her thoughts. “And you can’t say the same things.”

 

“Sorry, just thinking about my answer,” Beca replies as she watches Chloe finish her own beer and set it aside. “Okay, if I can’t say the same things you did, then…” Beca holds up her fingers to count them off. “We both love dogs. We both hate horror movies.”

 

“You hate all movies!”

 

“But I hate horror movies the most.”

 

“Because they scare you.”

 

“They scare you, too!” Beca says with a laugh. “You had nightmares for a month after we watched _The Conjuring_.”

 

Chloe shrieks at the memory and covers her face. “Don’t make me think about it!”

 

“Oh God, okay, sorry!” She leans forward to reach out and pull Chloe’s hands off her face and decides to hold one of them for a few seconds until the fear subsides. “And we both want to go to Switzerland someday.”

 

Chloe’s panic stops immediately. “How did you know I want to go to Switzerland?”

 

“You love skiing and I saw you looking at their tourism site once.”

 

“That must have been...I haven’t thought about going in years.”

 

Beca feels Chloe’s hand tighten on hers. “Yeah, it was when you were crashing with me.”

 

“Wait, you want to go, too?”

 

Beca feels her cheeks trying to blush. She didn’t mean to set herself up for having to white lie her way out of the fact that she wanted to go anywhere Chloe wanted to go because it meant experiencing Chloe’s pure joy first-hand. “Yeah. For the chocolate. And like...their watches. Go.” She pushes the notebook into Chloe’s lap with her free hand; Chloe’s still holding the other. “Ask.”

 

Chloe laughs a little and flips the page with her free hand and reads the question, but when she asks it, she looks at Beca. “For what in your life do you feel most grateful?”

 

Chloe’s thumb is brushing back and forth along the back of Beca’s hand and Beca has to fight to stop her answer from exploding from her the way it wants to. It’s such an instinctual answer, one she didn’t consciously decide, but there it is on her tongue. She chokes back the vigor it wants to come out with and instead manages a much calmer response. “Meeting you.”

 

She watches her words affect Chloe. They make her lips part and her breath stutter and her eyes fill with tears. “Beca,” Chloe whispers and it hangs between them for an eternal moment until Chloe lifts her free hand to wipe away a tear that’s fallen. “I’m stealing your answer,” she says with a watery smile.

 

She wonders what Chloe’s reaction and answer mean; if she’s moved that Beca values their friendship so much or if she understands where Beca’s coming from. That it’s more than valuing friendship and sharing experiences and altering life paths. She doesn’t get to dwell on it too long because Chloe rotates the notebook and turns the page for Beca to read.

 

Beca has to take a deep, steadying breath before she’s confident that her voice won’t crack. “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?”

 

Chloe’s quiet for a moment and Beca can see her weighing her response. “Sometimes I wish my parents had taught me more about boundaries.” She lets go of Beca’s hand as she says it, as though she noticed she’d crossed one.

 

Beca misses the contact immediately but doesn’t comment on it. “Why?”

 

“Sooo many awkward situations,” she answers shakily with a forced smile. “What about you?”

 

“I wish my parents hadn’t split.” Beca doesn’t have to think about that answer, either. And she’s relieved when Chloe moves to ask the next question and doesn’t ask her to expand on it.

 

“You know what? I could use another beer,” Chloe says instead of reading the question. “What about you?” She stands and heads for the fridge.

 

“Yeah, thanks.” Beca takes the few seconds of not being under Chloe’s scrutiny to wipe her brow and check her face in her phone’s camera to make sure that her mascara hadn’t run. She hadn’t cried but she’d come close. “What kind of quiz is this anyway? Are we supposed to be scoring each other or something?”

 

Chloe returns with two beers in one hand and a bag of salsa verde-flavored Doritos chips in the other. She drops the chips onto the table and hands Beca a bottle which she opens using the bottle opener on her keychain and hands it back to Chloe to open the other while Chloe takes her seat again.

 

“It’s just a quiz I thought would be interesting for us to do together. There’s no score.”

 

“It’s kind of heavy, don’t you think?” Beca says as she tosses the two bent bottle caps onto the table with her keys.

 

“Do you want to quit? We don’t have to keep going.”

 

Beca shakes her head. “I didn’t mean that. It was just...an observation. It’s your turn to start, right?”

 

She watches Chloe nod and take the first sip of her fresh beer as she turns the page in the notebook. “Okay. Take four minutes and tell each other your life story in as much detail as possible.”

 

Beca looks at her incredulously. “My life story in as much detail as possible in four minutes?”

 

“I think it means two minutes each.”

 

She suddenly feels like the clock’s already ticking and sits up straight. “Are you going to time me?”

 

Chloe laughs as she says, “No,” and settles further into her seat.

 

“You probably already know all of this, but okay. I was born in Portland. I didn’t start talking until I was almost 3, and when I did it was in complete sentences. But my parents were so worried that I was going to be mute or something they took me to all kinds of doctors and did all kinds of tests but I was always fine. I just didn’t talk. The first thing I ever said was, ‘I don’t want to take a bath, Mom,’ and it’s not like I remember it, but apparently she almost fainted in shock and fell into the bathtub.

 

“I used to go to my grandparents’ house every day after school and we’d have peanut butter sandwiches and my grandpa would teach me card tricks. In every play we did at school until I was in 8th grade, I was cast as the baby or the child because I was always the smallest in the class and the only reason it stopped was because I was old enough to say I didn’t like being typecast.

 

“I failed Chemistry. I almost got in a car accident when I was taking my driver’s license test so I failed that the first time, too. Oh, but I won every spelling bee at my school and even went to the state competition once. I got sent to mall jail when I was 15 because Olivia Johnson put a pleather jacket from Delia’s into my backpack without me knowing and it set off the alarm at the store. My parents got divorced. I graduated from high school. My dad forced me to go to college and you know everything that happened after that.” She takes a breath. “Was that two minutes?”

 

“It wasn’t a strict limit, Bec,” Chloe says with a smile. “What happens in mall jail? I’ve always wondered!”

 

Beca laughs. “It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Real jail was way more interesting.”

 

Chloe laughs, too. “Always taking the fall for your friends. Do you still know those card tricks?”

 

“I’d probably have to practice a little first, but yeah.”

 

“Maybe you can try them out on me later? Only if you want to, of course.”

 

“Yeah,” Beca says. “Maybe I could try. Okay, let’s hear it.”

 

She listens to Chloe share her two-minute life story and she’s starting to feel a little drunk; not so much on alcohol - they’re only three beers in and they ate an entire pizza - but on Chloe. It’s the way her eyes light up as she talks about getting an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas and how jealous of it her younger sister was and how her older sister didn’t talk to her for an entire month because Chloe used her makeup without asking, and the way she grimaces while she shares that she got her first period in gym class during a game of volleyball, and how she rolls her eyes at her terrible first kiss in middle school, and gets a little teary-eyed over the family dog passing away, and preens over going to prom with the hot South American foreign exchange student. She confesses she and her friends tried to devise a way to cheat on the SATs but ultimately were too chicken to try it. She mentions she met Aubrey in their freshman English class, which Beca knew, but she didn’t know that Aubrey took Chloe to her first college party. She shares that the break up that drove her to leave Atlanta and move to LA was caused by her boyfriend cheating on her. She’d never told Beca what happened, only that it was over, and Beca’s partly relieved she didn’t know because it would have been hard to stop her from getting on a plane to Atlanta and knock the jerk on his ass.

 

“And then I invited my best friend over for pizza and beer,” she finishes with a tip of her bottle toward Beca in acknowledgment.

 

Beca feels a little dazzled by it all, or maybe dazed. Some of it she knew, much of it she didn’t, but she was thrilled all the same to hear every word of it. “Wow, right up to present day.”

 

“Yep!” Chloe takes a drink and nudges the notebook with her toe. “Go.”

 

“We’re not going to unpack any of that?”

 

“That’s not the game. Go.”

 

“So now it’s a game?” Beca teases as she flips the page.

 

“Quiz. Whatever. Go!”

 

Beca laughs at Chloe’s impatience but reads the next question anyway. “If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?”

 

“Ooh, that’s easy! I want to fly.”

 

“That’s it? Fly?”

 

“What’s wrong with that?”

 

“You could choose to, like, have everything you touch turn to gold -”

 

Chloe’s serious when she explains, “Then everything I touch would turn to gold and I would kill anyone I touched.”

 

“Wow, okay, overthinker.”

 

“This is serious, Beca!”

 

“Okay, okay,” Beca laughs. “I’m sorry. You want to fly - cool. I think I’d…” she thinks for a few seconds. “I wish I could heal anyone who’s sick by thinking about them.”

 

Chloe seems confused. “Not by touching them?”

 

“If I had to touch them to heal them, I couldn’t heal that many people because I can only be in one place at a time. I’d have to go all over the world, or people would have to, like, take a pilgrimage to me and that’s weird. They should be able to call a hotline or send a letter and I read it and just like that,” she snaps her fingers, “all better.”

 

“I think that’s really beautiful,” Chloe says with a gentle smile. “I’m learning a lot about you tonight that I didn’t know.”

 

“That seems like it might be the point of this quiz.” Beca’s not completely sure _why_ Chloe wanted to take this quiz with her. It’s been emotionally taxing and with no end goal or points system, and she’s struggling to find a point to it - other than the fact that Chloe wanted to do it. “You’re up. Lucky number 13.”

 

* * *

 

_To be continued..._


	2. Set II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your comments/kudos thus far! To those wondering - yes, this is a real quiz borne of a real study!

* * *

 

“Okay. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?” Chloe asks.

 

“I think I’d ask it if I was on the right path for happiness.”

 

“You wouldn’t ask to see your future?”

 

“No,” Beca says with a shake of her head. “I wouldn’t want to know my future. I feel like that would lead to anxiety or depression or something. I’d constantly be worried I was going to do something to mess up what my future was supposed to be instead of living my life. What about you?” She reaches for the bag of chips and rips it open at the seam to offer it to Chloe before helping herself.

 

“I’d want to see the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with.”

 

Beca thinks about that: someone spending the rest of their life with Chloe. She thinks that would be pretty great. She doesn’t press Chloe to defend her answer and instead reads the next question. “Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?”

 

Chloe seems wholly unprepared for the question and almost does a spit take with her beer. “Oh, wow.”

 

“Guess you must have a good answer for this one.” Beca’s intrigue is quick to die when she realizes she’s going to have to answer the same question.

 

“Um,” Chloe says as she coughs. “Yes, and because I don’t want to risk ruining a good thing. Go.”

 

Beca wants more detail because that was exactly what she was going to say, but the question was posed as a yes or no answer and she isn’t going to want Chloe to needle her for more information. “Yeah. I don’t want to ruin a good thing either.”

 

Her answer sits between them until she looks away; it feels too much like they were thinking the same thing with their identical answers, but Beca’s mostly, relatively, fairly certain Chloe hasn’t been holding back from kissing her for fear of ruining their friendship.

 

Because that’s definitely what Beca’s dreamt of doing for a long time.

 

“Do you want to get some air?” Chloe asks as she stands and heads for the sliding glass door that leads to her small balcony. There’s only enough space for two chairs, but it’s served them well so far. They’ve spent countless evenings there, talking, drinking, smoking, laughing, crying.

 

“Yeah, okay.” Beca stands to follow. “Should I bring the…”

 

“If you want.” Chloe’s already outside when she answers.

 

Beca decides to grab the notebook and she joins Chloe, who’s leaning on the railing, bent as her head rests on her crossed arms. “You okay?”

 

Chloe unfolds herself with a sigh and finishes with a stretch of her arms above her head. “I’m fine,” she says as she turns to greet Beca with a smile. She does look fine and not at all affected as she had a minute earlier. “My turn, right?” she asks and then takes a drink as she holds out her hand for Beca to place the notebook in it. She flips the page. “What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?”

 

“You’d probably like it if I said winning Worlds and saving the Bellas from being shut down forever.”

 

“Yeah, but I’d rather know what your real answer is.” Chloe takes a seat and gestures for Beca to do the same.

 

“That’s probably _your_ answer anyway,” Beca teases while she finishes thinking and sits. “I think it’s too early in my life to have _the_ greatest accomplishment. I don’t know. I guess I’m pretty proud of finishing school instead of dropping out like I’d planned to do. I didn’t think I’d be any good at it.”

 

“What, college?”

 

“Yeah. I guess I did okay.”

 

“You helped me graduate. Well, eventually,” Chloe adds with a laugh. “So I think that’s a fine thing to consider your greatest accomplishment.”

 

“Couldn’t leave you behind, now could I?” Beca says with a glance in Chloe’s direction. The sun has long set and they’re basically sitting in the dark, but there’s enough light from the city that she can see Chloe’s gentle, shy smile as she looks down at her lap. “So what about yours? Was I right?”

 

“Mm, no, sorry.” Chloe shakes her head. “I was a bone marrow donor once? It wasn’t anyone I knew, but I signed up for the donor registry when I turned 18 and they called me like three months later. Some little girl had leukemia and I came up as a match.”

 

“Whoa, really?”

 

“Mhm. So I went in and had the procedure. I never met her; she lived in Pittsburgh. But they said she went into remission after the transplant.”

 

Beca watched Chloe smile to herself as she told the story. It was awesome. Literally. “Dude, you saved someone’s _life?_ ” She reaches across the space between them and puts her hand on Chloe’s forearm. “That’s...I don’t even know what that is. Saying it’s amazing doesn’t seem...wait, how did I not know about this?”

 

Chloe laughs a little and glances her way. “I was way too self-absorbed and obsessed with winning when we met to think to tell you about something like that. And by the time I wasn’t...it’s not really something you bring up in casual conversation.”

 

Beca lets her thumb glide over Chloe’s skin. “So this quiz is a thinly veiled excuse to boast about your heroics.”

 

“Ya got me.” She places her free hand over Beca’s and holds it there as they share a laugh. She bounces the notebook sitting on her lap with her knee. “Okay, hit me with the next one.”

 

“M’kay.” Beca scoots her chair closer so she can keep her hand resting on Chloe; Chloe seems to like it there, so Beca’s not going to take it away except to snag the notebook. “What do you value most in a friendship?”

 

“Honesty.” Chloe’s answer is quick and she almost seems to regret it. She doesn’t take it back, but she does seem to laugh at herself and shake her head. “What about you?”

 

Beca’s sure in her answer. “Loyalty.”

 

Chloe nods as though she expected or agrees with her response. “Pass it.”

 

“You know, usually when you ask me that out here, it’s not a _notebook_ I’m passing you.” Beca tosses the notebook into Chloe’s lap and watches her laugh.

 

“Okay,” Chloe says. “What is your most treasured memory?”

 

Beca raps her fingernails along the neck of her glass bottle as she thinks. “Remember my pie for dinner?”

 

“Your dad’s homemade apple pie,” Chloe confirms.

 

“Right. He and my mom, they taught me how to make it before they...well, before,” she finishes. She considers going into more detail, and maybe sometime she will tell Chloe about the flour fight that her mom started while they were making the pie crust or how her dad cut his thumb slicing apples. But for now, she’s shared enough of it. “What’s yours?”

 

She watches Chloe smile to herself as she looks out over the balcony at the lights of the city and Beca knows she’s remembering whatever it is.

 

“When I was seven, I was playing on the jungle gym at recess. Because I’m a classy lady, I was hanging upside down from it even though I was wearing a dress.”

 

“Naturally.”

 

“Naturally.”

 

“You _were_ wearing underwear I hope?”

 

“I said I’m a classy lady! They were my Tuesday panties.”

 

“Was it actually Tuesday?”

 

“Beca!” Chloe laughs again. “Of course it was. Let me tell my story.”

 

Beca holds her hands up and sits back in her chair. “Sorry. Proceed.”

 

“Anyway, I was hanging upside down flashing the entire playground, so some uptight monitor rushed over to protect my honor or something by screaming at me to get down. But my dress was over my head so I didn’t know she was coming and it scared me so much I fell off and broke my arm.”

 

“No!”

 

“Yes!”

 

“How is this your most treasured memory?”

 

“I’m getting to it,” Chloe says as she puppets her hand at Beca to tell her to stop interrupting. “So of course I’m lying on the ground crying and Angelica Morrison comes running over - she was a fourth grader and I was in second grade - and holds my hand and tells me dumb knock-knock jokes while we walk to the school nurse. Even after the bell rang, they let her stay with me while I waited for my mom to pick me up to take me to the hospital. When I went back to school the next day, she was the first person I asked to sign my cast. I had to wait until our first recess of course because she was _sooo_ much older than I was.”

 

“I feel like I’m still waiting for the punchline.”

 

“There’s no punchline. She signed my cast and when she signed it, she signed it with a heart, like, ‘heart comma Angelica,’ and I was giddy for a week over it.”

 

“Wait - did you have a crush on her or something?”

 

Chloe nods. “I was way too young to really know it, but yeah. At the time, it made me feel so special that she spent time with me and even was tardy because of me.”

 

“That’s actually really adorable,” Beca says with a fond smile.

 

“And then we made out at Ian Andrews’s homecoming party when I was in tenth grade and she was a senior and I never felt cooler than I did that night. Well, up until that point, anyway.”

 

Beca laughs. “There’s the punchline. Hooking up with a senior - congrats.” She extends her arm to offer her bottle to Chloe to tap and they drink to it. She tries not to think about all the times she wanted to hook up with a certain college senior. “So is the high school make-out sesh the treasured memory?”

 

“No; it’s the stuff that happened in elementary school. That was the first time I remember someone being really nice to me - like, the going out of their way to be nice to me kind of nice - who wasn’t someone in my family. I remember deciding that I always wanted to do whatever I could to make people feel the same way.”

 

Beca feels every thought she’s had about Chloe’s over-the-top niceties slot into place. It all makes sense now. “I think you’ve succeeded.”

 

Chloe turns to her and Beca can see that the memory or moment has moved her. “Thank you.” She sniffs. “You’re next.”

 

“Oh, what a mood killer,” she says as she reads the question with regret. “Sorry. What is your most terrible memory?”

 

“Really?” Chloe says with a whine. “Brutal. Umm...probably the day my mom told me she had breast cancer.”

 

Beca doesn’t even know what to say to that, but now she understands more about Chloe’s previous answers, though Chloe’s mother is very much alive and Chloe’s never mentioned her being in treatment and seemed healthy every time Beca met her. “She’s okay now, right?” she hedges.

 

“Yeah, she’s been in the clear for a long time.”

 

“Okay. Good.”

 

“Your turn to remember something horrible.”

 

Chloe smiles a little as she says it and Beca’s grateful. “Gee, thanks. And...yeah, I mean, it’s what I’d change about growing up because it was pretty much the worst thing: the day my parents took me out for ice cream to tell me over hot fudge sundaes that they were getting divorced.”

 

Chloe looks sympathetic, then seems to come to a conclusion of some sort. “Is that why you don’t like ice cream?”

 

Beca’s surprised Chloe connects those two very distant dots so quickly. “Um, yeah. I mean, I actually love it. But I got sick every time I ate it after that so I gave it up altogether.”

 

“Wow, I’m sorry,” Chloe murmurs.

 

“It’s okay. I mean, it sucks, but it is what it is.” Beca averts her eyes, worried too much eye contact right now will cause something already weak to break.

 

To her extreme relief, Chloe stands. “Okay, I’m calling a timeout. I’m cold and my beer’s empty. Let’s go back in?”

 

“Sure.”

 

They make their way back into Chloe’s apartment and Chloe excuses herself to the restroom. Beca busies herself while she’s waiting to try not to think too much about...well, about everything. She gathers up the empty pizza box, used napkins, and spent bottles and bottle caps and leaves to make a trip down the hall to the trash chute. When she returns, she’s a little surprised to see Chloe’s changed into pajamas - polka-dotted knit shorts and a well-worn T-shirt at least one size too big - and waiting for her on the couch looking at her phone. She doesn’t have fresh beers out for them, but there is a glass with an inch or two of amber-colored liquor and a trio of ice cubes in it.

 

“Getting comfortable, I see,” Beca says. She gestures at herself. “Now I feel terribly overdressed.” She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie.

 

Chloe puts her phone down and smiles at her. “You look great.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder toward the closet. “But if you want to change, you can borrow something.”

 

Beca considers it and then decides she’d rather be comfortable like Chloe and heads toward the door in the corner next to Chloe’s bed. Chloe’s closet is organized chaos but it’s organized enough that Beca’s able to find a pair of blue and white striped pants. She tosses them on Chloe’s bed and starts to undo her jeans but she stops when she notices Chloe watching her.

 

“Sorry,” Chloe says and looks away.

 

They stopped being shy around each other for things as mundane as changing clothes years ago; sharing dressing rooms and hotel rooms and a house for as long as they did make a trivial thing such as that an unnecessary waste of energy. Other than herself and _maybe_ two other people, Chloe is the person Beca’s seen naked the most. And it’s not a bad sight.

 

She doubts the same is true for Chloe, though.

 

“You know I don’t care, dude,” she says casually, though she thinks she might be blushing and strips herself of her jeans to replace them with Chloe’s pajama pants.

 

Chloe’s fiddling with the hem of her shirt when Beca returns to the couch. “Didn’t want you to think I was perving on you.” She looks up at Beca and winks, easily sliding back into her confidence.

 

“I said I don’t care,” Beca says as she reclaims her seat and manages to wink back. She’s surprised when it seems to fluster Chloe a little as she jerks to the side to grab her glass of liquor.

 

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted to keep drinking - if you were planning on driving home tonight - so I didn’t pour you one. But if you want -”

 

“No, I…” she pauses when she catches the way Chloe’s eyes linger on her before sliding away as she takes a sip. “I’m good. I mean, I’m already…” she rocks her hand side to side to indicate she’s tipsy. “I’m good for the night. I don’t think I should drive.”

 

“That’s okay, you can stay here,” Chloe says quickly with a bright smile.

 

There really was never any question about whether or not Beca would be spending the night tonight; it was a rarity that one of their hangouts didn’t end up turning into a sleepover. Beca figured it was some type of old-habits-die-hard situation that carried over from their time together in college. By now, they both had personal belongings at one another’s homes. Things like toothbrushes and back-up makeup and hair products. More than once, they’d discussed the need to leave clothes, too, but for some reason - Beca knew what her reason was - they kept “forgetting” to do that.

 

She really liked borrowing Chloe’s clothes.

 

“Cool, thanks.” There’s a beat of silence and it almost turns awkward so Beca clears her throat and nods at the notebook on the table. “Your turn to ask, lady.”

 

Chloe smiles at her and grabs the notebook. “Okay. It looks like we’re going to keep going with the dark stuff: if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living, and why?”

 

Beca hisses as she inhales and thinks. The question is not dark in the way she expected; it’s not about death. It’s about life. “Yeah, I…” She hesitates. “I...if I knew I was going to die in a year…” She repeats the question to buy time and then decides to say what first came to mind. “I…I’d ask you to move back in with me.”

 

Chloe seems taken aback by her answer. “What? Why?”

 

She shrugs and tries to play it off as nonchalantly as she can, but she doesn’t want to take it back. It was an honest answer, and Chloe does value honesty above all else in friendships. “If I only had a year left, I’d want to spend as much of it as I could with you - with my best friend.” It’s still a half-truth, though, and one dangerously close to the whole truth. Beca’s unsure that this little quiz is going to help her keep that whole truth from slipping its way out of her grasp.

 

She thinks about how if you squeeze something too tightly, it might pop right out of your grip.

 

“Why are you so frickin’ sweet?” Chloe says as she reaches over to chuck Beca under the chin with a knuckle.

 

“Shut up,” Beca says but she doesn’t shy away from the contact and there’s no bite to her words. “What about you?”

 

“My answer is the same. I’d want to spend more time with you, too.” Chloe’s hand shifts to frame Beca’s face and her thumb brushes along her cheek before she takes her hand back. Beca feels her heart dip into her stomach at contact and loss. “And I would quit my morning runs so we could sleep in together.” She grins at Beca as she sits back.

 

Beca’s mind skitters at that - at Chloe’s potential insinuation that in this hypothetical scenario, they’d not only be living together but also sleeping together on a daily basis. They’ve slept together hundreds of times, she reminds herself; just not in the way Beca would really like to experience someday. She clears her throat to try to clear her mind and looks at the next question to read Chloe. “What does friendship mean to you?”

 

“Aww,” Chloe coos as she glances at Beca. “I like this one. It means always having someone’s back. Being there for them when they need you. And they’re there for you when you need them. And you can call each other on your bullshit or when you’re messing up and it doesn’t ruin anything. It means...being in each other’s corners. Always.”

 

Beca smiles at her because that’s exactly what they have. She knows Chloe has her back every moment of every day, and she has Chloe’s. “I could steal your answer, but I won’t,” she starts. “I think it’s being able to trust someone. Implicitly. And you never have to worry if they’re going to betray that trust.”

 

“I love that,” Chloe says before taking a drink and turning the page. “All right. We’re really getting into the therapy now.”

 

“And the last, what, 15 questions weren’t?” Beca says with a laugh.

 

“Mmm, you’re right. But this is number 21: What roles do love and affection play in your life?”

 

Beca feels her body try to seize up at the question and is glad Chloe hasn’t yet lifted her head to watch her speak because her face is surely contorted into something very unattractive and concerning. She tilts her head hard to crack her neck and manages to get her body to relax a little. “Do I have a free pass I can use?”

 

Chloe looks up. “I’m not going to make you answer something you don’t want to. I’ll go first and if you want to answer it after, you can. How’s that?”

 

“Yeah, that’s…” Beca nods and feels the warmth of relief seep through her bones. “Yeah.”

 

“Okay. Well, I think loving people, and being loved, is the key to happiness in life. We’re not meant to be solitary animals. We need that human connection. To know that we matter. And I don’t mean that if you don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend you’re going to feel like you don’t matter or that you need one to feel...worthy.”

 

“I didn’t think you did.”

 

“Love is...everywhere. It’s in every _thing._ ” Chloe’s glowing as she speaks. “Love makes the world a better place to live in. And I love everything and everyone.” She pauses and then giggles. “Well, with a few exceptions.”

 

“Am I an exception?” Beca smirks.

 

Chloe shakes her head and lets her arm rest along the back of the couch. It reaches Beca’s which is doing the same and she entwines their fingers. “You are the rule.”

 

Beca wasn’t expecting that. Chloe's answer is so direct and delivered so sincerely, looking right into Beca’s eyes with her hand held tightly that it feels like she can’t breathe and suddenly her eyes feel wet.

 

The words sit between them for eternal seconds and somehow Beca manages to maintain Chloe’s gaze.

 

“And as for affection,” Chloe eventually continues. She squeezes Beca’s hand. “I can’t live without it. Giving or receiving.”

 

Beca fails at steadying her breath before she exhales; she can hear how shaky it is and she knows Chloe can, too, because she squeezes Beca’s hand again.

 

“You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to,” Chloe says quietly.

 

“No, I, uh -” Beca swallows the words that comprise the lump in her throat. “You, um, yeah you kind of taught me how to...love people again? Or whatever?” She waits for Chloe to say something, anything, that will help her shut up, but all she does is watch Beca. “My parents really fucked me over with that. I thought they were so in love and one day they weren’t and it felt like they’d been lying to me my entire life. It felt like love was fake or something.” She remembers her first year at Barden University. “And when I met you guys -” she stops and thinks about the importance of honesty to Chloe and takes a breath - “when I met _you_ , I...I realized it was real. That they, my parents, _had_ been in love. And...and that it wasn’t the terrible thing I thought it was.”

 

Chloe’s silent and seems confused, or maybe stunned. She’s just staring at Beca and making her want to crawl under the couch and hide and why isn’t she saying _anything?!_ And Beca’s pretty sure she just confessed to Chloe that she’s in love with her in not so many words and Chloe’s reaction - or lack thereof - is making her wish she could rewind and try that answer again.

 

The silence is broken by Chloe taking a shaky, gasping breath. It returns as a nervous laugh that Chloe apologizes for as she covers her eyes with the hand not holding Beca’s. Her laugh fades to a tight-lipped smile and she nods (to what? Beca’s unsure) and the whole reaction makes Beca’s heart stop.

 

When Chloe lowers her hand there are tears in her eyes and her cheeks are pink. Beca braces herself for whatever she’s about to say, but instead, all Chloe says is, “Your turn.”

 

Beca’s unsure if she’s relieved or upset by it; she’s walked herself to the edge of the cliff and was ready to let gravity exercise its power. “Uh, yeah. Um.” She turns the page. “Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of each other. Share a total of five items.”

 

“Okay,” Chloe says with what seems like a deep, cleansing breath. “You care more than you let on.”

 

Beca tilts her head at that. It feels like an accusation, and she thinks maybe it is. She swallows and decides not to question it and instead tosses it back to Chloe. “You can make anyone smile.”

 

Chloe’s smile widens. “You are always in my corner.”

 

Beca feels her heart buzzing a little. “I know it’s not easy to be the positive person you are and I know you work hard at it because it makes other people happy and making people happy makes you happy. And it’s pretty awesome you care so much about other people’s happiness.”

 

“You don’t care if people underestimate you. And I know it’s because it means you can impress them more easily, but you don’t let it get to you that they underestimate you in the first place.”

 

Beca’s surprised Chloe picked up on that; she’d never talked about it before. But it was true, and something she’d taught herself in recent years and not without effort and strife. Beca doesn’t have to think hard to come up with another thing she loves about Chloe. “I like that you let me be sad if I’m sad even though I know it kills you to not try to cheer me up right away.” She likes that it’s a battle for Chloe; she knows she’s struggling with letting Beca be sad and thus making her happy versus trying to make Beca happy.

 

Because either way, Chloe’s goal is for Beca to be happy.

 

Chloe’s nose scrunches a little at that and Beca can’t help but think how cute it is. “You are so driven and motivated and I really admire that,” Chloe responds.

 

“You always do your best to treat everyone fairly.”

 

“You’re the bravest person I know.”

 

Beca wants to reject that, but that’s not the exercise. So, she takes it. And cherishes it. “You make me want to be a better person.” She realizes she’s smiling but doesn’t stop. “Was that five?”

 

“Yeah, I think so,” Chloe says with a nod. “That was, um...really nice.”

 

For some reason, Beca feels immeasurably lighter. Maybe it’s from the meaningful compliments, or the alcohol settling, or the way she just noticed Chloe playing with her fingers. Regardless, she feels light as air and she turns her wrist to trace her fingernails over Chloe’s palm. It feels absurdly intimate and even arousing, and the way Chloe looks at her when she does it doesn’t help things.

 

“Yeah, it was,” she replies. Her whole body itches to move. She wants to get on her knees and cross the neutral territory of the cushion between them and show Chloe just how much she does care.

 

“My turn, right?” Chloe says as she breaks her gaze to read. “How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?”

 

“I think I should have saved that free pass for this one,” she says with a bitter chuckle.

 

“You don’t -”

 

“It’s okay,” Beca interrupts. “You know, I...I don’t really think about it. But I guess now that I do...things were really bad for a long time after the divorce, but now...yeah. I mean, I guess we’re all close again. And my mom and dad can be in the same room without fighting, and sometimes they even smile at each other. So I guess that’s good. As for my childhood, well,” she says with a sad huff. “I think it was pretty great except for that one thing. What about you?”

 

“Oh, I love my family.” Chloe says it with conviction, like she’s trying to convince Beca of something that has been grossly obvious to her since she and Chloe got to know one another. “We’ve all always been super close. As for my childhood being happier than most? I don’t really know. I didn’t have a bad childhood. I don’t want to say it was better or happier than someone else’s. But I have no complaints.”

 

There’s a beauty to the simplicity in Chloe’s answer, as though there’s no need to expound upon it because it’s that easy: Chloe loves her family and Chloe’s family loves her.

 

“Okay,” Chloe says before Beca’s decided whether or not she wants to comment on their answers. She nods at the notebook. “Hit me.”

 

Beca’s still partly caught up in how Chloe’s fingers keep interlocking and tracing her own but manages to turn the page. “How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?”

 

“Oh, that’s easy,” Chloe says with a grin. “She’s my best friend. Well,” she interjects, “she’s _almost_ my best friend.” She gives Beca’s hand a playful shake. “We tell each other everything and we don’t judge each other and I know I can go to her for help no matter what it is.”

 

“I’ve always been closer to my mom than my dad,” Beca starts when Chloe gestures for her to. “I don’t really know if I could call her a friend, though. And I don’t mean because she’s a bad person,” she hurries to clarify. “I’ve just never felt like she trusted me to take care of myself. Like, if something happened and I needed help, she’d help, but it would come with some version of an I-told-you-so. So, I guess, you know, that’s my relationship with my mother. In a nutshell.”

 

She feels Chloe’s fingernails trailing up the sensitive underside of her forearm and it makes her shiver. Chloe must notice because she smiles and does it again, then smooths her palm over her arm as though to make it all better. Beca doesn’t know why, but she does know she would like Chloe to keep doing it.

 

Instead, Chloe pats her arm. “Break time.”

 

Something about Chloe calling for a pause to the quiz feels like a bubble bursting and Beca feels cold when Chloe stands up and leaves her for the restroom.

 

She’d like to think she doesn’t know why she has a chill in Chloe’s absence.

 

But she knows better.

* * *

_To be continued..._

 


	3. Set III

“Okay,” Chloe says once they’re settled on the couch again. Her toes end up edging under Beca’s leg under the excuse that they’re cold and Beca shifts to let them wiggle their way further. “Make three true ‘we’ statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling...”

 

Beca lets her hand rest over Chloe’s ankle. “So now it’s about us?” It sounded innocuous in her head but hearing the word “us” makes her swallow. “Okay. We...are both nerds.” It makes Chloe laugh.

 

“We are learning a lot about each other tonight.”

 

Beca tilts her head a little at that. “We are...two sides of the same coin.”

 

Chloe smiles at her. “We know how to have fun.”

 

“We…” The words Beca wants to finish with are too forward, too direct. She wants to say they are made for each other. “We are good together.”

 

There’s hesitation in Chloe’s demeanor and she even pulls her lower lip between her teeth - her tell that she’s thinking hard about something. “We…” She takes a breath. “We make each other really happy.”

 

The statement flows through Beca and burns like liquor. She makes Chloe really happy. And there’s no doubt Chloe makes her happy. “We do?” she asks, feeling breathless.

 

Chloe flashes her a smile. “Don’t we?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Yes.” She squeezes Chloe’s ankle and flips to the next page of the notebook. “Okay, complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share…’”

 

She hears Chloe take a breath. “I wish I had someone with whom I could share...my bubble baths.”

 

It almost makes Beca laugh until she imagines sharing a bubble bath with Chloe, and her laugh comes out more like a choking snort. She has to wave off Chloe’s concern and accepts the sip of bourbon offered from Chloe’s glass. “Thanks. Sorry. Okay. I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”

 

There are a dozen or more ways she could finish the sentence but there’s one that bubbles to the top.

 

“...my life.”

 

She feels Chloe’s toes wiggling under her thigh and then they’re jerked away. It’s so sudden it startles her because Chloe’s in a flurry of motion. She sits up and then stands halfway to move down the couch until she’s sitting on her hip, facing Beca, on the thus-far neutral middle cushion.

 

Her knee rests against Beca’s and her arm comes to rest along the back of the couch again, but this time it’s also framing Beca.

 

The whole thing has Beca’s heart pounding and she realizes she probably looks like a deer caught in the headlights so she forces herself to blink several times, in rapid succession, as Chloe watches her with an almost invasive level of interest.

 

Until Chloe looks away, finds the notebook that ended up beneath her, and turns the page. “If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for her to know.” She looks at Beca again and Beca feels Chloe’s fingertips playing at the nape of her neck and it’s everything she can do to not shiver from head to toe. “Well, I think we’re already way more than close friends. But it’s important for you to know that I really, really hate onions.”

 

Once again, Chloe’s unexpected answer makes Beca laugh, but this time it’s a welcome moment of levity. She was starting to feel like she was suffocating. “I know you hate onions, you nerd. I’ve watched you send back food a dozen times because they put onions on something you ordered.”

 

“Their texture is terrible and they make your breath stink. Why would anyone willingly eat something so bad?”

 

“Because they add flavor?” Beca says with a laugh. She can still feel Chloe touching her and the shiver still trying to manifest but she’s been able to slide it a little bit toward the back of her mind. “Don’t worry; I won’t ever knowingly give you onions.”

 

“Thank you,” Chloe says with earnest.

 

Beca shakes her head at how impassioned Chloe became over such a thing and she has to rein herself in from just jumping forward and kissing her. “It’s important for you to know that I love you.”

 

She’s still thinking about the answer she wants to give when she sees Chloe’s face change from serious to surprise.

 

“I love you, too,” Chloe whispers and Beca feels fingers creep higher into her hair, sees Chloe try to shift closer.

 

It’s only then that she hears her own words echo back to her.

  
She hadn’t meant to say that out loud! That was one of many answers and it wasn’t going to be the chosen one, and yet here she is. Suffocating. She can feel the panic boiling, the need to stammer an apology or explain it away.

 

But she’d been honest.

 

And Chloe had said it back.

 

Chloe had said it back!

 

But she probably meant it as friends. Like, she loves her as her best friend.

 

Beca manages to channel her panic into reaching for the notebook and turning the page with more force than necessary; it rips a third of the way down the page along the spiral binding and she reads quickly to try to move past what just happened. “Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.”

 

Chloe’s still looking at her when she finishes reading and she has her answers at the ready. “I like that you let yourself be vulnerable with me. I like that I can be vulnerable around you. I like that you don’t get tired of me.”

 

She finally notices Chloe’s stopped talking, which means it’s her turn. “I - I...I like how you make me feel. About myself. You make me feel like...like I’m important.”

 

“You _are_ important,” Chloe says with big eyes and a gentle smile. “So much more than you know.”

 

Beca watches Chloe start to lean forward and her heart threatens to leap out of her chest.

 

“Okay: share an embarrassing moment in your life,” Chloe reads, and then laughs. “Oh, nooo!”

 

“Um, yeah,” Beca says, mouth feeling like cotton as her pulse tries to return to normal. It’s made difficult by Chloe’s incessant touch. “When I was 16, my dad walked in on me...well, he walked _in_ on me.”

 

Chloe’s brow furrows. “He walked in on you…” She gasps when she understands. “Oh, my God! He walked in on you!”

 

“He didn’t look at me for, like, a week. And neither did I. Seriously the most embarrassing moment of my life.”

 

Chloe’s free hand covers her mouth in horror. “How much did he see?”

 

The entire mortifying experience plays out in her mind and she grimaces. “Enough.”

 

“Were you at least under the covers?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Oh, God!” Chloe groans and hangs her head in sympathetic horror. “Oh, God, I would have _died_ if that happened to me.”

 

“Yeah, I made sure to lock my door after that. And he remembered to knock from then on, too.”

 

“I should hope so. Oh, wow. Okay.” Chloe straightens and fans her face, flushed pink. “Yours is way more embarrassing, but: I signed up for the talent show when I was in eighth grade to sing but when I got up there, I totally blanked and forgot the lyrics. My backing track kept playing and no one thought to restart it to try to help me, and no one shouted out a lyric or anything. I just stood there waiting for it to end while everyone in the audience stared at me. I cried about it for days.”

 

“Well,” Beca says as she pats Chloe’s knee and leaves her hand there, “you got past it and turned into an amazing performer.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“All right.” Beca’s finally feeling like she’s not wound quite so tightly anymore. “Question 30: when did you last cry in front of another person and by yourself?”

 

Chloe thinks for a moment, eyelashes fluttering as she searches her memory. “The last time I cried in front of someone was last week at Trader Joe’s because they were out of my dried mango slices.”

 

“Seriously?” Beca says with a laugh. She makes note to always buy dried mango slices when she sees them.

 

“Shut up, they were the only reason I went and I really wanted them. As for by myself…” Chloe pauses. “Last night.”

 

Beca opens her mouth to ask what happened; she can’t handle it when Chloe’s upset and she had no idea Chloe was crying last night. They’d texted until they were too tired so Beca called her and they talked until Beca fell asleep. Chloe hadn’t mentioned anything being wrong. She’s about to ask when Chloe shakes her head to stop her. “Okay, well, I guess, technically, the last time I cried in front of someone was...like...an hour ago?”

 

“You cried an hour ago?” Chloe really does move closer this time, wearing a look of concern.

 

“Well, uh, kind of. Yeah.”

 

“When? Why?”

 

“When you...when you said I’m the rule.”

 

Chloe’s still, then. “You are.”

 

As easy as the first time - easier, even, perhaps - tears prick her eyes again. “Oh, my God, stop it,” she says with a sniffle as she rubs at her eyes. “I can’t handle it. I’m ready for this quiz to be over.” She doesn’t know what’s going to happen when it _is_ over but she knows these questions need to end.

 

“Beca, we can stop, it’s okay.”

 

“No, let’s just...let’s just hurry up. I cried by myself two weeks ago. Go. Ask.”

 

“Okay.” She can tell Chloe’s jittery now. “Tell your partner something that you like about them already. Oh, no, you’re going to run out of things you like about me if we keep having to do this.”

 

Beca gives a quick shake of her head and even dares to reach out and frame Chloe’s face with her hand for a moment. “I could never run out of things I like about you. I like that you’ll speak up for me if I’m too embarrassed, like at a store or restaurant or something.”

 

She thinks she sees Chloe’s eyes starting to shimmer.

 

“I like that you don’t expect me to be happy all the time.”

 

Beca nods and glances down at the notebook. “What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?”

 

“Rape. Anything non-consensual. Sexual or otherwise.”

 

“Yeah, same, same. Go.” Beca felt something shift between them when they discussed the last times they shed tears. It’s crackling in her bones and singing in her veins.

 

Chloe’s hands are restless; the one that’s been idly playing at her neck is starting to comb repeatedly through Beca’s hair like she’s searching for the perfect spot to rest. The other is on Beca’s knee and it keeps gliding back and forth along the length of her thigh and Beca’s confident if she was wearing shorts, she’d cease to exist at the contact. “If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone,” Chloe reads, “what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?”

 

Chloe stares at her.

 

And Beca stares right back.

 

She already told Chloe she loves her. She’s told her she’s held back from something in favor of not risking a good thing. Chloe’s watched her tear up at her declaration that Beca’s the baseline for all love and affection in her life.

 

_Fuck it._

 

“That I’ve been in love with you for so long I can’t remember what it’s like to not be in love with you and I didn’t want to tell you because if you don’t feel the same way then I just ruined the most amazing friendship I’ve ever had. But I can’t. I can’t not tell you. If I die tonight and you didn’t know that...it would kill me all over again. I’m in love with you, Chloe. I’m in love with you.”

 

She feels like she might pass out; she’s lightheaded and seeing stars, or maybe it’s the light reflecting in the tears that are on Chloe’s cheeks. Her body threatens to give out, to crumple in on itself, but Chloe’s hand leaps to her shoulder to keep her upright.

 

“What about you?” Beca says with a watery laugh. “No regrets?”

 

Chloe’s mouth seems to struggle to move, opening in closing in silence until she closes it and nods. “I love you, too,” she says with a deep breath. “I’m so, so, in love with you.”

 

Absolute joy floods Beca and she’s well aware she’s crying for real. “Okay, fuck this stupid quiz,” she says as she shoves the notebook to the floor.

 

She sees the unspoken agreement pass over Chloe’s face and she pushes forward, ready to finally kiss her best friend like she’s dreamt of doing for nearly a decade.

 

“Wait, wait,” Chloe says, though, with a stiff arm to stop Beca’s advance.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Beca says, immediately going into panic mode. “I thought -”

 

“No! No, no. I mean, yes. You’re...yes. I want to. Just...we don’t have to do the last three questions but I really want us to do the last thing.”

 

Part of Beca wants to scream in agony. They haven’t even kissed and she’s never felt as wound up as she does now. “What’s the last thing?”

 

“Look into each other’s eyes for four minutes without talking.”

 

“Seriously?” Beca snaps but her impatience only serves to make Chloe smile and run her hand down and back up Beca’s arm until both her hands are holding her neck.

 

“Please?”

 

Chloe’s already looking into her eyes and Beca’s ability to reject her request is nonexistent. “Set a timer or something.” She doesn’t want to wait one more second than necessary.

 

She watches Chloe set the countdown on her phone and notices the way Chloe’s hands are unsteady as she does so. As soon as Chloe sets it down Beca catches her hands with her own and holds both of them tightly. She shifts in her spot so she can better face Chloe. “I can’t believe you’re -”

 

“Shhh.” Chloe’s hands are warm but her eyes are warmer as they settle on Beca’s.

 

Staring at each other for four minutes didn’t seem like a big task when it was requested. What're four minutes? It’s the length of one song. It’s how long it takes Beca to walk from her apartment to the convenience store down the street and the number of minutes she has to microwave her frozen macaroni and cheese dinner. Four minutes is not a long time.

 

Until she has to spend it staring into Chloe’s eyes in absolute silence for each and every one of the 240 seconds.

 

It feels like a lifetime ago now that she showed up at Chloe’s apartment for dinner. When she left her home, she expected nothing more than a usual evening spent with her best friend.

 

She didn’t expect a quiz, and definitely not one that forced them to open up to one another in ways they rarely did. And not because they didn’t want to, but that they rarely had cause to reach so deeply.

 

And the absolute last thing she anticipated was confessing her deep, dark secret of being in love with her best friend - and having the sentiment returned.

 

She can see it now, in Chloe’s eyes. She’s not sure how she never noticed it before, but the love is there, clear as day as they hold each other’s gaze.

 

It makes Beca squirm, the intensity. She itches to look away because being faced with what she’s wanted and somehow also feared for so long is almost overwhelming. Chloe’s hands tighten on hers and it calms Beca.

 

She wonders how much time has passed. How much time is remaining. How many more seconds have to tick by until she can finally pull Chloe in and kiss her until they’re gasping for breath.

 

She finds, though, as the seconds tick by, that though her anticipation grows and grows, her impatience begins to fade.

 

There’s something peaceful, serene even, about this shared moment of silence. It feels like she and Chloe are of one mind, exchanging and giving and taking as they sit. She can see Chloe’s eyes focus and refocus and knows when her thoughts have changed from one thing to another. She catches the moment they begin to tear up, only to be blinked away with a shy smile. She hears the steady cadence of Chloe’s breathing and the way it increases infinitesimally when Beca tightens the hold she has on Chloe’s hands and wets her lips.

 

It was an innocuous action, one of absent-minded necessity and not meant to tease, but she sees the effect it has on Chloe and she can’t help but do it again, even going so far as to catch the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth.

 

They’re _supposed_ to be looking into each other’s eyes but Chloe’s have drifted down to watch Beca do it so Beca watches Chloe’s and the way they react, mimicking the movements as though she’s thinking about licking Beca’s lips.

 

And having _that_ thought pulls Beca out of the moment of serenity and right into one of longing and need.

 

She wonders if she made some type of a noise because Chloe’s eyes snap up to hers as though she did.

 

She feels the shift before she sees it. Chloe’s hands break out of her grip. They land on Beca’s thighs and she feels the pressure of Chloe using her for leverage as she pushes herself forward.

 

Beca closes her eyes.

 

The timer hasn’t sounded but she’s giving up; she can’t wait one more second and she can feel Chloe’s advance, can sense her energy and feel her warmth growing until her quick breaths drift across Beca’s lips.

 

“Open your eyes.” Chloe’s words wash over her as the hand that’s been playing and caressing her hair returns, sliding with a calm ease along her neck until fingers weave through Beca’s hair.

 

She forces them open and though she knew to expect it, nothing could have prepared her for Chloe to be as close as she is, cheeks pink and eyes dark as she hovers so close, almost too close for Beca to be able to see her clearly.

 

The ringtone on Chloe’s phone marking the end of four minutes cuts through the silence.

 

Time seems to stop, then. The racing of her heart is the only way Beca knows it hasn’t truly stopped.

 

Everything hangs in the air around them. The hours of confessions and stories. Of shared fears and likes and dislikes. Years of experiences and laughter and tears. All of it swirling around them until, with a quiet breath from Chloe that makes Beca take one of her own, it all drops out of the air to crash down around them as Chloe brings their lips together.

 

Beca’s eyes close. She doesn’t need to see anymore. She only needs to feel and listen to the way Chloe sighs as Beca’s hands reach for her, to slide into her hair and control the angle of their first kiss. To the way Chloe’s body is malleable beneath her touch as Beca presses forward, a nudge to her shoulder and a tug at her hip until Chloe’s on her back and Beca’s lying over her.

 

She only needs to hear the whimper that escapes Chloe when Beca slips her tongue along her lips and the groan that follows it when her lips part and their tongues meet.

 

“What the fuck was that quiz?” Beca asks after a few minutes. She needs a breather and assumes Chloe could use one as well. She doesn’t stop altogether, though; she can’t at this point. Her lips graze Chloe’s as she asks the question and she peppers kisses to her cheeks and nose and along her jaw until she’s inching down her neck.

 

A whine escapes Chloe and Beca can’t believe she can have that effect on Chloe. “36 Questions to Fall in Love. Why did you stop?”

 

Beca lifts her head at that. “You invited me over to take a quiz that’s supposed to make you fall in love with each other?”

 

“Well...it worked, didn’t it?” Chloe says with big innocent eyes.

 

Beca just laughs and shakes her head before kissing her again. “I didn’t need a quiz to fall in love with you.”

 

She feels Chloe’s arms embrace her. “Neither did I.”


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make these two idiots in love stay in their little T-rated world, but they didn't want that.
> 
> They really, really wanted to venture to the M-rated world.
> 
> And they ventured _deep._

* * *

 

“Bed?” Chloe mumbles against Beca’s neck and Beca’s sure she’s never been able to feel a word before this moment. She feels that word to the very core of her being.

 

She hears the moan that escapes her lips and considers being embarrassed by it until she hears Chloe echo it. She nods and drops her legs from where they’re wrapped around Chloe’s waist. She doesn’t even remember how or when she ended up being the one on her back on the couch. There’s a fuzzy memory of being pushed up and shoved onto her back. Her body seems to remember more than her mind and a shiver runs right down her spine.

 

She feels teeth against the curve of her neck in response followed by the swipe of a tongue and the loss of Chloe’s weight atop her. Her eyes struggle to open but when they do, she sees Chloe standing over her, hair a tousled mess and her face and neck tinted pink.

 

Chloe reaches her hand down to help Beca up so she takes it. Chloe pulls her up and off the couch and right into her arms and another kiss with such strength Beca feels like a rag doll.

 

“I’ve been waiting to do that for so long,” Chloe says when they part.

 

“Do what?” Beca can hear the way Chloe’s winded and it does things to her. “Yank me off the couch like I’m nothing?”

 

“Oh, baby,” Chloe purrs at her - she _purrs_ \- as her hands travel along Beca’s silhouette until they’re framing the curves of her ass, “you’re everything.”

 

The whole event - the pet name, the tone, the sentiment, the touch - makes Beca’s knees weaken and she leans into Chloe, supporting herself by holding on to her shoulders. “Okay, wow,” she says with an airy laugh. She feels drunk and knows it has nothing to do with the three beers she drank. “That’s...yeah.”

 

Chloe smiles at her and tightens her grip, even lifting a little and Beca lets it lift her right to Chloe’s lips. Her hold on Beca takes her forward a step, then another, and another until they’re shuffling across the floor. It’s not far from the couch to the bed and they come to a stop after a few more paces. The light, teasing kisses they shared along the short journey turn passionate again and Beca feels so hot she wishes she could shed the very skin Chloe’s lips are touching.

 

She returns Chloe’s kiss with what she can only hope is as much passion as Chloe is sharing with her as she lets her weight pitch forward ever so slightly. She trusts Chloe to either carry her across the line or back them up if she wants to, but she wants Chloe to know she’s in.

 

She’s all in.

 

Her answer comes by Chloe dropping away from her kiss.

 

Beca looks down to see Chloe sitting on the edge of her bed just as she parts her knees to make space for Beca and the sight makes her dizzy. She lifts her hands to frame Chloe’s face, looking up at her with so much lust and desire Beca’s not sure what to do.

 

Chloe doesn’t make her figure it out. Her hands travel around Beca’s waist until they’re easing under her hoodie. They move with confidence, though slowly, over the warm skin of Beca’s lower back. They mold to the arch of her spine and slide higher until fingertips nick the band of her bra and Beca braces herself for Chloe to unhook it right here and right now.

 

Instead, her hands retreat and move along parallel paths around her waist until they’re on Beca’s stomach. Chloe leans forward to rest her forehead against Beca’s torso and she’s acutely aware that the positioning all but has Chloe’s face in her breasts. She’s still, as though she’s resting, and Beca manages to bring her hands up to comb through Chloe’s messy curls and hold her there, face to her sternum, hands on her stomach.

 

Beca can see her breathing; it’s deep and slow and the moment seems eternal.

 

It lasts so long that Beca can’t stand it anymore.

 

She eases a hand out of Chloe’s hair and snags the pocket of her sweatshirt. The move seems to go unnoticed until she pulls on it.

 

She pulls on it enough that it lifts an inch. She’s not quite sure if Chloe noticed while her hands explored that Beca isn’t wearing anything under her hoodie. She hopes that it’s okay given what she’s about to do.

 

She hears Chloe notice it by the deep breath she takes. She pulls a little more and Chloe leans back enough to let the garment move between them. It happens in slow motion: Beca watches her own hand grip the hoodie with purpose and lifts it steadily. It lifts until she’s raising her arms over her head to pull it up and off to drop it to the floor.

 

Chloe doesn’t move an inch, not until it’s gone. She observes it with a level of wonder that Beca feels all too unworthy of but she doesn’t denounce it. Her hands stay rooted where they’d been: flat against Beca’s stomach. Beca can feel her breath now against her bare skin and she can feel its pace increase, can see Chloe’s posture start to shift to lift her chin see what’s been revealed.

 

It’s not the first time Chloe has seen her topless; not the first by far. But it feels as though it is as reverently as Chloe is taking her in.

 

She watches Chloe’s eyes move from her own hands and higher until they’re on Beca’s chest. Her hands follow the path of her eyes. They slide higher and higher, straight up until her fingers bend and flow over Beca’s curves until they’re covered.

 

And then they squeeze.

 

Beca tries to watch it but the sensation is overwhelming and it makes her head tip back.

 

She feels the warmth of Chloe’s lips next, soft and tender above her navel. Then higher. And higher until Beca feels them against the inner curve of her right breast.

 

It makes her gasp for air and that seems to serve as encouragement for Chloe. The kisses come faster, more fervent, higher along the curve until she’s dropping down only to make her way up the left.

 

Beca’s hands are restless, unsure where they should be now that they removed her top. They ball into fists and flex and strain as Chloe’s lips - and now tongue - move over the skin available to her. Chloe’s hands are restless, too, but in a way that feels purposeful. They glide and caress and scratch Beca’s stomach and waist and back until Beca feels them playing at the edge of her bra, tracing the band from the center of her chest and around her sides until they meet in the middle again.

 

She hears the click of a fingernail clipping over the two small hooks followed by Chloe’s hands smoothing over her back again, this time higher until her hands reach Beca’s shoulders.

 

When they drag down, she uses her fingernails and Beca moans.

 

Chloe does it again and Beca drops her head down to watch Chloe’s mouth on her chest. There’s a small reddish-purple spot where Chloe’s been tending to and a thrill rushes through her at being marked.

 

When Chloe’s hands move to do it a third time, Beca’s make up their mind and reach back to lift the hooks from their eyelets. She’s about to release it when she hears Chloe.

 

It’s quiet but distinct.

 

“Please.”

 

Beca lets go and feels her bra loosen. It lifts, but not completely, and she watches Chloe. She’s staring. Waiting. Her hands move until she’s trailing her fingers along the soft lower curves of her breasts to hold them. It makes Beca’s heart pound harder.

 

When she sees Chloe’s tongue wet her lips, Beca gives in and strips it down her arms.

 

She hears Chloe whimper.

 

Her hands know where to go this time and they tangle in Chloe’s hair. She doesn’t pull or tug; she knows what’s coming next and is willing to wait, but won’t be willing to let it stop.

 

Chloe’s eyes flick up at her and Beca holds her gaze as her hands curve to cup her breasts. Her touch is barely-there but it’s enough to make Beca’s breath stutter. She holds Beca’s stare the endless length of time it takes for her lips to graze the tip of Beca’s breast.

 

Beca’s hands tighten in her hair and she feels like she should apologize but she can’t. She can’t even breathe let alone speak as she watches Chloe kiss her straining, pebbled flesh - and then lean to the left to kiss the other.

 

Her lips part and she watches her nipple be taken into Chloe’s mouth.

 

It’s all she can do to stay conscious. The only thing that keeps her from passing out is not wanting to miss a second of what it looks like to have Chloe at her breast.

 

She hears the desperation in her voice when she moans and feels the rush of air as it seems to spur Chloe. There’s motion, quick and sure as Chloe’s hands explore the newfound flesh. Her fingertips graze, then pinch, then pull on the right when her mouth suckles the left and Beca’s knees genuinely give out.

 

She falls forward and her knees land between Chloe’s parted legs as she tries to catch herself, a hand to Chloe’s shoulder but not yet surrendering the grip she has on Chloe’s hair. She’s starting to utilize it now, to push Chloe closer and she was about to pull her back and have her change sides when she lost her balance.

 

Chloe moans and for a second Beca thinks it’s from the pull of her hair. But then she feels Chloe shift against her knee and she realizes what’s happened. She looks down to see for herself and has to lean to see around Chloe who is still dutifully at work. But what she’s surmised what correct - her right knee landed squarely between Chloe’s legs when she fell forward.

 

She’s not sure if Chloe knows she knows so she gives an experimental lift and press. It’s experimental but it’s more than purposeful. It’s firm. And direct.

 

It makes Chloe’s mouth slip off her breast to moan, “Oh, God.”

 

“I, uh,” Beca starts, having to stop to wet her lips and swallow, “I think I need to lie down.”

 

She can feel Chloe’s energy shift and she meets her eyes. “Are you okay?” Chloe asks. She’s awestruck, but Beca can tell she’s ready to stop if Beca says the word.

 

Beca nods and eases her grip on Chloe’s hair and manages to straighten her knees so she’s upright again. “I think this...I think this would be better...horizontal. Lying down, I mean.” She sees Chloe start to smile. “Bed, right?”

 

Chloe’s smile broadens until she’s almost grinning and she nods and starts to scoot backward until Beca stops her.

 

“Wait, wait. I just…” She hesitates. She considers and reconsiders. Then realizes Chloe’s literally been licking her breasts and she quits hesitating. She reaches for the hem of Chloe’s shirt and starts to lift it. “Take this off.”

 

Chloe’s arms raise to let Beca lift it up and away as she did her own hoodie. She tosses it aside and her fingers move immediately to trace the straps of the bra she’s uncovered. It’s pink and soft cotton and she follows them down her shoulders to the cups. She’s about to reverse her motion to follow them up and down her back to unhook it but before she can, she feels it loosen and fall away.

 

Beca knows what she’ll see; she’s seen it countless times.

 

But never once has it been because Chloe is revealing herself to her. To show her. To invite her to her body. Not until tonight.

 

Her hands are hovering; they’d been ready to slide along the straps from the cups but the straps are gone and though her focus is on what’s inches from her fingertips, she can feel Chloe watching her.

 

“Beca,” Chloe whispers and Beca can hear the need in Chloe’s voice.

 

She sees Chloe’s hand moving, coming toward her own to guide her but Beca doesn’t need it.

 

She reaches and covers Chloe’s breasts with her hands and Beca knows there’s no going back from this for her.

 

Chloe’s voice breaks the silence. It’s an airy but shrill sound, almost a squeak of surprise. Her hands fly to Beca’s waist as though she had to steady herself despite being seated.

 

Her fingers swirl once, then graze over the tips. They’re firm and stand in stark contrast to the softness of the surrounding flesh and Beca’s not sure how she’s ever supposed to stop touching them now that she’s started.

 

Chloe decides for her. She pulls herself out of reach by backing away and moving fully onto her bed. She doesn’t take her eyes off Beca and the magnetism is palpable. It seizes Beca and pulls her in and she doesn’t remember deciding to move, but she’s on her hands and knees crawling up the bed she’s spent dozens of nights in to join her best friend who is in love with her and is topless.

 

Just like she is.

 

She watches Chloe lie down as she approaches and Beca has a distinct out-of-body feeling that she’s watching all this happen, or maybe that she’s dreaming or having a really good fantasy. Chloe’s hands find her skin as soon as she’s close enough and pull Beca down and onto her body and into a kiss she knows is real. It’s a fantastical dream, but he knows it’s real because she can feel the vibration of Chloe’s moan in her fingers where they rest against Chloe’s throat.

 

The sensation of her skin on Chloe’s makes Beca’s hips roll and she feels Chloe moan again. It’s not enough so Beca shifts until she can slip her leg over Chloe’s to better fit together. When she resettles, she’s sure to press her thigh into Chloe and tries not to be too obvious that she’s pressing herself against Chloe’s.

 

Chloe’s teeth nick Beca’s lower lip at the contact and Beca feels her body roll beneath her. It’s then that Beca _feels_ her. She feels how this is affecting Chloe, even through Chloe’s shorts and her own - well, Chloe’s - pants. There’s heat and moisture and she knows she’s in a similar state herself.

 

She wonders if Chloe can feel it, too.

 

Hands roam over her back, down her shoulders to her waist and down again until they’re on Beca’s ass. They grasp and pull just as Chloe’s knee bends and Beca feels guided right over Chloe’s firm thigh.

 

“Fuck,” she breathes before she kisses Chloe harder. Her hands are limited where they can go and what they can do as she holds herself up on one elbow, but her other moves from where it’s rested along Chloe’s neck to run down her side. She slows at the curve of Chloe’s breast and lifts herself enough that her hand can fit between them; it’s been far too many seconds since she touched her there.

 

She remembers how Chloe touched her, how her fingers were loving but bold and Beca returns the gesture with a firm pinch.

 

It makes Chloe’s back arch beneath her and Beca has to break their kiss to watch it with awe.

 

Chloe is beautiful.

 

It also makes Beca’s hips roll again and she falls into a slow rhythm. She pinches again and this time she’s ready to watch the effect it has. She even twists it a little and her ears ring at the groan it pulls from Chloe.

 

It seems to make Chloe restless. She fights the slow, steady rhythm Beca’s set as she rocks against Chloe again and again. Her hips lift and twist so Beca abandons her breast to reach down and catch the back of Chloe’s knee. She pulls it up, hooks it around her own hip, and drops her mouth back to Chloe’s as she speeds up her pace.

 

She knows Chloe has to feel it now; her pants - Chloe’s pants - are soaked through and she can feel Chloe’s against her own thigh. It makes her plunder Chloe’s mouth with her tongue in a desperate, filthy way and it makes Chloe react.

 

Beca feels the hands that have been clinging to her ass to keep encouraging Beca to move faster move, quick as lightning, so they’re gripping her beneath the thin fabric of her borrowed pajamas. They don’t stop, though; Beca can feel them fumbling blindly with her underwear until they make it beneath them, too, to hold Beca again, bare hands on her bare ass and it makes Beca hike Chloe’s knee higher to rock into her harder.

 

She’s starting to move on autopilot, less thinking and more feeling as her need to drive Chloe crazy has the side effect of turning her on just as much. They’re both sweating - she can feel it between them and it only makes Beca work harder.

 

Chloe moans her name and Beca almost combusts. She catches it though; it snuck up on her so unexpectedly that she freezes altogether. She can hear the way they’re both panting and Chloe’s hands are at Beca’s face. They repeatedly push her hair back and out of the way until she has it gathered and away from her face and Beca takes it as a cue to force her eyes open and pull back from the kiss.

 

“Are you okay?” Chloe asks and her voice is so broken and gravely it almost makes Beca’s arm give out.

 

She nods. “Yeah. Why?”

 

“You stopped.”

 

“I almost came.”

 

She finds herself pinned on her back, Chloe above her. “Say it again,” Chloe whispers as her tongue drags up Beca’s neck. She catches her earlobe between her teeth to tug on it.

 

She groans as Chloe’s hand runs down her chest between them. It pauses at her breasts before sliding further until the tips of her fingers are beneath the waistband of Beca’s borrowed pants.

 

“Say what again?” She hears the clap of her palms as they connect with Chloe’s back to cling to her. She feels like she could float away even with Chloe holding her down.

 

Chloe’s mouth pulls at her neck. “Tell me you were going to come.”

 

Beca doesn’t remember saying it but it’s true and hearing Chloe say those words make her desperation become unbearable. “Chlo…”

 

Chloe hums and her hand eases further down Beca’s pants. Beca feels it resting atop her thigh and it’s not enough.

 

None of it is enough.

 

“Please,” Beca whines - she _whines_ \- and starts pushing her own pants off.

 

Chloe’s hand leaves her thigh and catches Beca’s. She thinks she did something wrong but Chloe only takes it to move it aside. “I got you,” she whispers before pressing one more kiss to Beca’s lips. Then she sits back on her knees and hooks her fingers under the waistband and starts to pull.

 

Beca lifts her hips to let them slip down and they work together to get them off her legs. Chloe’s hands barely leave her skin long enough to accomplish it and they’re back on Beca as soon as the pants are gone. They’re gliding up her calves and grazing up her thighs until they trace the elastic band of the only thing Beca’s still wearing. Chloe’s eyes are on her as she does it so Beca nods.

 

She’s waited years for this; she doesn’t need to wait any longer.

 

She watches Chloe ease them down and sees the look on her face change. Beca can’t define it, can’t divert the energy necessary to, but the moment her underwear is at her thighs Chloe looks overcome. She takes them down the rest of the way and Beca tucks her knees to help and suddenly she’s naked in Chloe’s bed.

 

Chloe seems frozen in place, upright on her knees between Beca’s ankles while her hands glide up and down along the lengths of Beca’s calves. Beca can tell she’s trying not to look, or at least not to stare, and Beca has a very distinct thought that all the past times she’s been in this position with someone, she’s felt shy and embarrassed and eager to turn off the light or hide under a blanket.

 

She doesn’t feel like that at all now.

 

“Chloe.” Instead, she parts her legs further. _“Please.”_

 

Chloe’s gaze rakes over her body until she’s pitching forward. Beca braces herself for the impact but Chloe catches herself in time to ease back into place, hips between Beca’s thighs and tongue between Beca’s lips.

 

Beca wraps her arms around Chloe’s neck and sighs into her kiss. She wishes she’d thought ahead to strip Chloe of her shorts before they resumed this, but it’s a small regret in the grand scheme of things. She holds Chloe close as they kiss, and kiss, and kiss. The kiss breaks when Chloe moves; she moves off Beca and she’s about to demand to know why she would do such a thing until Chloe settles alongside her and brings their lips together again as her hand starts tracing patterns over Beca’s chest. She draws spirals and lines and swoops, each one drifting lower and lower until she’s _right there_ , right at the very edge of everything, past where long-gone underwear would be but not quite _there_ and she stops.

 

“You’re sure?” Chloe asks quietly.

 

“Please don’t make me beg.” Beca reaches for her, straining her neck to bring their lips together.

 

She feels Chloe’s long exhale as they kiss slowly and Chloe’s hand starts inching lower. She holds her breath as she feels Chloe’s hand follow the curve of her body.

 

Beca’s imagined this moment hundreds of times. She’s tried to imagine, tried to imitate what it would feel like to have Chloe’s fingers graze between her legs. She’s touched herself, or let others touch her, while she tried to pretend it was Chloe and it was never enough.

 

Her hips lift at the first touch and she whimpers. Chloe’s touch is soft, so much softer than Beca ever imagined it to be. There’s a quiet moan against her lips and Chloe presses herself closer to Beca’s side as she reaches further, then reverses her path until her hand comes to rest where it began - barely in contact with the arousal she’s responsible for.

 

“God, you feel so good,” Chloe whispers against her lips.

 

She places her hand over Chloe’s. “Then don’t stop.” She guides it down, back where Chloe belongs, and moans into Chloe’s mouth when her kiss turns hot and Chloe finally gives her sweet, sweet pressure. She stops guiding but lets her hand follow Chloe’s. It’s intoxicating to feel her touch and how her hand moves. It helps Beca process that this is real, that Chloe is making love to her, is touching her with such admiration she could cry.

 

She finally lets her hand fall away when Chloe’s fingertips start to hint at slipping inside her. She knows she’s going to need to hold on to something when that happens and she doesn’t want to get in the way by trying to hold on to that blessed hand. Instead, she twists her fingers in the blanket and the other clings to Chloe’s back to brace herself.

 

It’s a slow, smooth heat as Chloe presses into her.

 

“God,” Beca says with a groan. Her hips chase the touch as Chloe presses deeper, and deeper still until the palm of her hand fits against Beca’s body. She can’t help but tighten around Chloe to try to pull her in further and never let her go.

 

Chloe’s hips roll against Beca’s side and Beca hears her moan in her ear as her mouth travels back to Beca’s neck. Her kisses there are gentle but wet as she presses more firmly, the heel of her hand working in slow circles against sensitive flesh. Chloe’s tongue traces the shell of her ear and Beca shivers. “Like this?”

 

Beca feels her body straining as she nods. “Don’t tease.”

 

She feels Chloe lift her head so she opens her eyes to see her hovering above her wearing a little smile. “I’m literally inside you right now. You think this is teasing?”

 

Beca groans at the verbal acknowledgment of what she is very, very aware of and presses her fingernails into Chloe’s back to make her point. “Stop being so...so…”

 

Chloe’s smile fades a little and Beca realizes she’s said something wrong.

 

“No, I didn’t mean - just…”

 

“Just what?”

 

Her need powers her request and her hips lift. “Just...fuck me, Chloe. _Please.”_

 

The way Chloe groans makes Beca’s entire body shudder. Chloe nods, a slow, almost stunned motion until she’s nodding vigorously. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do that, baby.”

 

“Keep calling me that,” Beca says with a gasp as Chloe levers herself up to change her angle. “I like it.” Chloe’s fingers slip out of her and she feels frustratingly empty until they move to press against her bundle of nerves and start working in firm, slow circles.

 

“What, ‘baby’?”

 

“Yes, fuck.” Beca has to close her eyes; it’s too much to see Chloe above her, feel her touch, hear her voice.

 

She hears Chloe hum and feels her press herself closer still until her knee hooks over Beca’s. “You swear a lot in bed, baby.”

 

Beca manages to laugh but she reaches up and tangles her hand in Chloe’s hair to pull it. “Can’t help it. Please go faster.”

 

Chloe does. The slow, firm circles start to speed up. She presses harder and Beca’s mouth falls open. She’s never been made to feel this way, so consumed and tended to and cared for. Chloe’s restless above her and not just with her hand and the way it’s taking turns staying focused and determined and exploring and experimenting with different angles and speeds. Her whole body is on edge as though she can’t get comfortable. Beca can feel the muscles in her back flexing as she moves. She’s trying to press herself impossibly closer to Beca and then she finally gets it.

 

“God, come on already,” she says with a groan as she bends her knee and twists her hip to guide Chloe where she so clearly wants to be: astride Beca’s thigh.

 

Chloe moves with her and Beca feels her settle against her. She can feel how hot and wet Chloe is. The shorts might as well not even exist, as distinctly as she can feel Chloe. Chloe moans with the first roll of herself over Beca’s thigh.

 

Beca flexes her thigh and presses it up into her. “Good?”

 

“Uh huh,” Chloe says breathlessly.

 

Beca forces her eyes open; the reality of what’s happening begs to be seared into her memory and it’s worth it. It’s worth it to see Chloe almost naked, straddling her, _riding_ her while she holds herself up on one stiff arm and rubs Beca’s clit with the other. It’s worth it to see how flushed she is and how her mouth hangs open as she breathes hard, moans and whimpers escaping every other breath.

 

Her hands move to hold Chloe’s hips; she has to feel the way they move as they rock and swivel, sometimes in long steady strokes and other times in quick little circles. Her patterns match how she’s touching Beca and something about that, that Chloe wants them to feel the same thing, makes fire - _more_ fire - engulf Beca. She watches her move and then needs to feel something else, something different and her hands know. They run up Chloe’s stomach and she can feel the strength there as she grinds herself into Beca. She can feel her ribs expand and contract with her quick, shallow breaths, and she can feel the softness of the curves of her breasts and the firmness of her nipples as Beca’s hands cover them.

 

Chloe groans as Beca drags her thumbs across the hardened peaks.

 

Beca echoes it and wishes she could feel it, too, but Chloe doesn’t have enough hands.

 

But _she_ does.

 

She’s still watching Chloe’s reaction to Beca touching her when Beca drops one hand away to her own breast, to her own nipple, and mirrors the way her fingers tease Chloe’s.

 

It makes Chloe’s moan break off into a high-pitched exhale. “Oh, God, Beca. Baby.” Her incessant grinding halts and Beca gasps. She’s almost ashamed by the sound she makes when Chloe triples-down on how hard and fast she’s stroking Beca.

 

Almost.

 

Chloe’s entire body is tense and she looks ready to snap.

 

Beca has to struggle to ask, “Are you…?”

 

Chloe nods quickly and her jaw is set tightly but she manages to eek out, “I won’t. I want you to do it.”

 

Beca’s body twitches at her answer. Chloe’s close. Chloe’s on the verge of coming. Chloe’s stopping it because she wants Beca to be the one to give it to her.

 

“But I want to make you come first,” Chloe tacks on with a husky voice.

 

That’s what does it.

 

That word, that sentence on Chloe’s lips as Chloe’s eyes burn through Beca. She tries to hold Chloe’s gaze - she can tell Chloe wants her to - but she can’t. Release crashes over Beca like an avalanche. She can feel it in every inch of her body, pulsing from her core to her toes to her head and back again.

 

She struggles to catch her breath as it subsides and she opens her eyes.

 

Chloe’s still over her, still tense and frozen in place and she’s biting her lip. When she notices Beca looking at her she lets out a pitifully arousing whine. “God, that was so much hotter than I imagined.” Her touch between Beca’s legs is easing but it’s still there, light and slow.

 

Beca can see her own chest heaving. The concept that Chloe’s fantasized about her is almost too much. “You imagined this?”

 

“All the time,” Chloe says and Beca can feel her trying to pick up her pace again so she grabs Chloe’s wrist to still her.

 

“Me, too,” Beca says with a deep breath that finally succeeds in slowing her pulse to a rate less alarming than a minute ago.

 

Chloe smiles down at her and allows Beca to guide her hand from her body. “Yeah?”

 

Beca nods and starts to sit up. She wraps an arm around Chloe’s waist and leans until Chloe moves with her to let Beca trade their positions. She lets Chloe get comfortable beneath her as she sits up on her knees and reaches for the wrecked and infuriating shorts clinging to Chloe’s body. “Let me show you.”

 

Chloe seems to shiver and she tilts her hips so Beca can strip the shorts from her. Beca had long ago decided there was nothing else beneath them and she’s pleased when she sees she’s correct.

 

She’s never going to forget this moment, what it looks like, feels like, to see Chloe this way, to be stripped bare with her in so many ways tonight.

 

She watches Chloe move her arms to rest them above her head. She’s submitting. Wholly and completely. “Show me.”

 

Beca’s only struggle is deciding which fantasy she wants to share. She decides the best option is to pull from several and she starts by straddling Chloe’s hips to lean down and bring their lips together.

 

It’s been far too long since they kissed.

 

She kisses Chloe with care, like she has every brush of lip and graze of tongue calculated to the millimeter. She keeps herself from pressing too heavily into Chloe’s body with a hand to the bed and lets her left hand reach up to find one of Chloe’s. She plays with her fingers as they had earlier that evening on the couch, then drags her fingernails down the soft skin of the underside of Chloe’s forearm. She can feel the goosebumps it pulls from Chloe and she can’t help but smile a little.

 

She’ll smile a lot, later, when her mouth doesn’t have far more important things to do.

 

She follows the length of Chloe’s arm, forearm to elbow to bicep to underarm until she’s following the curve of Chloe’s breast. She traces it in light circles and feels Chloe’s breathing quicken the closer she gets to the center. She aches to jump right to it, to play with Chloe’s nipple in the way she already learned can drive Chloe right to the edge. But she takes her time. It’s too good to hear Chloe getting worked up in anticipation.

 

It’s worth the wait when Chloe keens into her mouth when she drags a fingernail over her nipple. It’s a sharper touch than she would prefer herself but she already has Chloe figured out.

 

Chloe likes things a little bit rough.

 

Beca repeats the motion and she feels Chloe’s body roll in a wave beneath her. She expects Chloe’s hands to come down and do something to direct Beca or take control but they don’t. They stay rooted in place and it floods Beca with pride.

 

She eases her tongue from Chloe’s mouth to move her attention to her throat. She’s in no rush but she doesn’t want to torture the girl who was seconds from orgasm not that long ago. Beca shifts her body lower, knees astride Chloe’s thighs as she maps kisses down Chloe’s chest toward her breasts.

 

She hasn’t had the chance to do this yet.

 

To tilt her head to the left and take Chloe’s nipple into her mouth.

 

It feels so exquisite on her tongue that she can’t help but sigh in pleasure. She hears Chloe moan so she works her tongue over it firmly. It’s standing at such attention she can’t help but capture it between her lips and pull as she suckles it until it slips from her mouth.

 

“Oh, shit,” Chloe pants above her.

 

Beca smiles to herself as she moves to the right to repeat it to her other breast. She teases it to attention and then lets her teeth graze it as she lets it go.

 

“You’re going to kill me,” Chloe says in a broken whine. She’s shifting desperately beneath Beca and Beca feels just as eager as she knows Chloe is.

 

She casts her eyes up at Chloe to find Chloe’s already on her watching every move. She holds Chloe’s gaze as she catches it with her teeth again and glides her tongue across the peak.

 

Chloe’s jaw drops as though Beca just discovered a new universe.

 

Beca thinks to herself that she kind of did - a universe where she gets to show the woman she loves just how much she cares about her.

 

“Touch me, baby,” Chloe finally begs. “Please touch me.”

 

Beca finishes with a wet kiss and then pushes herself backward further. She keeps her eyes trained on Chloe as she presses kiss after kiss down the center of her abdomen. Her tongue dips into Chloe’s navel and it makes Chloe twitch.

 

“Oh, God,” Chloe says after a few seconds, as though she just realized where Beca was going.

 

Beca smirks up at her; she feels so confident and she’s never felt like this in bed before, and certainly not during a first time. She feels like she can do no wrong, that even if she does something Chloe doesn’t like, it will be okay and they will learn about each other together. “What was it you wanted me to say for you?” she says as she moves back further still until she’s nudging Chloe’s legs apart.

 

She watches Chloe wet her lips and then bite hard on her pouty bottom one. “Hmm?”

 

Beca lowers herself until she’s propped on her elbows between Chloe’s thighs. She mouths at the warm skin where her thigh meets her torso. “You liked when I said I almost came.”

 

Chloe groans at that and she nods.

 

“You like when I say I’m going to come?” She lets her tongue trace that crease and slides an arm under Chloe’s left thigh.

 

Chloe’s hands seem to fist with each other where they still lay above her and she nods again.

 

Beca hums to herself as she works her tongue closer to the wet, swollen flesh she’s dreamt of kissing innumerable times. “That’s hot,” she whispers. “But I want to hear _you_ say you’re going to come.” She presses her tongue to Chloe and watches her arch off the bed.

 

“Fuck!” Chloe finally says with a gasp.

 

Her taste and her reaction and her everything make Beca moan and she loses herself. She loses herself in Chloe and the way her hips start to rock and press closer to her, in the sound of Chloe groaning and crying out each time Beca’s tongue swipes across her at the perfect angle that she tries to master as quickly as she can.

 

She tries to move with Chloe, to predict her erratic motion but it proves difficult so Beca takes control and adjusts her position to pin her hips down. It lets her focus on that perfect angle and speed that is making Chloe curse over and over again.

 

She feels Chloe stop fighting her; the tension in lessens and Beca doesn’t have to hold her still.

 

It’s then she realizes Chloe’s giving herself up to Beca - to let Beca take her there completely on her own.

 

She wants Beca to do it.

 

It makes Beca groan at the sexiness of Chloe’s surrender and she catches Chloe’s flesh between her lips. Her tongue strokes over it while her lips pull at it and she hears Chloe.

 

“Baby,” she says with an already-broken voice. “I’m - I’m...fuck, baby, I’m going to come.”

 

Beca’s own hips press into the bed on instinct; she’s so turned on (again? still?) and she moans. She keeps her tongue steady, working over Chloe again and again as she can’t help but thrust her body against what little friction she can find. The blanket manages to bunch up just right, though, and it’s enough.

 

She has to stave off her own orgasm to wait for Chloe. She wants to tell her she’s going to come, too, but she can’t take her mouth off her, not now, not this second, but she hopes that her own desperate-sounding, if muffled, cries and constant motion are more than enough for Chloe to know.

 

“Shit, are you…” Chloe whines.

 

“Mhmm,” is all she can manage to answer.

 

Suddenly hands are on her head, fingers are in her hair and she’s being pulled in, pushed closer, and it’s all she can do to breathe but she doesn’t care if she suffocates.

 

“Oh, shit - oh, shit - oh, shit!” Chloe’s voice rings in Beca’s ears and she feels it. She feels Chloe throb and then she has to work to keep her mouth on her because her hips are bucking so hard.

 

It shoves Beca over the edge, too, and she groans into Chloe.

 

“Yes, yes, baby,” she thinks she hears. It’s hard with Chloe’s thighs pressed to her ears but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re riding this wave of ecstasy together.

 

When she feels Chloe go slack beneath her she lets her slip from her lips and rests her forehead on Chloe’s thigh. She can feel fingers combing through her hair and it sends aftershocks of pleasure through her, making her shiver.

 

The room is silent save for their labored breathing and Beca cherishes it, this bond, this shared experience, this breaking down of walls until there’s nothing between them but crumbled brick.

 

It takes a bit, but once her faculties return she manages to detangle herself from Chloe’s legs. When she lifts her head to move, she’s bowled over by how Chloe looks.

 

She looks destroyed in the best humanly possible way.

 

Beca had intended on moving off Chloe to lay down next to her but instead, it drives her to crawl right up her body until she’s sliding her tongue into Chloe’s mouth.

 

Chloe’s moan is low as she wraps her arms around Beca and pulls her down until Beca has no choice but to let her full weight rest on her. It seems to be what Chloe wanted, though.

 

This kiss is different, and Beca knows it. It’s not a first kiss, or a desperate kiss, or a teasing kiss. It’s a kiss of reassurance and comfort. It’s slow and relaxed and Beca sighs as Chloe traces her lower lip with her tongue before slipping it back into Beca’s mouth.

 

Once it slows to a mutual end, Beca shifts so she’s not quite completely on top of Chloe but stays close enough that she can touch her lips to Chloe’s cheek if she wants to.

 

Which she does. So she does.

 

Her arm drapes over Chloe’s stomach and it’s comforting to feel the slow, steady rise and fall of her breathing. Chloe has an arm under and around Beca and her fingernails tease light, shiver-inducing trails along Beca’s back.

 

“Wow,” Chloe finally says to break the silence.

 

Beca hums and bows her head to kiss Chloe’s shoulder. “Mhmm.”

 

“That was amazing. I love you.”

 

Beca can’t stop the grin from spreading across her face and she lifts her head to look at Chloe. “I love you, too.” It feels so good to be able to finally say it. “Tell me more.”

 

Chloe giggles and her hand runs up to slide into Beca’s hair at the base of her neck and she pulls Beca down into a kiss. “I don’t need to tell you how good it was,” Chloe says before pecking her one more time. “ _You_ came _twice_.”

 

Beca blushes at that but she’s not embarrassed. Not in the slightest. “I said I’d thought about it a lot. It was...Pavlovian.” She grins harder. She’s never felt so light and happy.

 

“Your Pavlovian response to doing that is to orgasm?” Chloe returns her smile. “My job in this relationship is going to be so easy.”

 

Beca jostles her in protest because there’s no way Chloe’s getting away with being a pillow princess, even though Beca really wouldn’t fight her if it came down to it.

 

And then she stops.

 

“Relationship?” She watches Chloe’s free hand lift and move until her index finger is tracing along Beca’s brow, down her cheek, and along her jaw until it taps under her chin.

 

Chloe’s smile softens, turns more earnest. “Seems like it would be a waste if we didn’t give it a go now.”

 

Beca nods and drops to kiss Chloe firmly. She knows she’s crying because she can taste the salt of her tears. When she pulls back Chloe’s hand works on wiping them away and Beca can see tears trailing down Chloe’s temples, too. “Oh, my God, we’re such nerds,” she says with a huff and a smile before she kisses Chloe again.

 

“So is that a yes?” Chloe says with a wink when Beca pulls back.

 

Beca looks down at the woman she’s shared so much with - they’ve gone through so much: good memories and bad, laughter and tears, fights and reconciliations - and she doesn’t know how she managed to be this lucky, to finally have the person she knows she’ll spend the rest of her life with.

 

“Yeah,” she breathes. “Yeah, let’s do this.”


End file.
